Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1187 - 238 Studies Can't Be Wrong: The Key to Better Parenting

Transcript

#1187 - 238 Studies Can't Be Wrong: The Key to Better Parenting · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: What if I told you that there was one parenting style,
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  Speaker 1: evidence based that is ongoingly linked to child well being,
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  Speaker 1: and that there is one thing that you can do
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  Speaker 1: that is almost guaranteed to take your child down a
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  Speaker 1: negative path to child ill being. Today. That is our
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  Speaker 1: discussion on the Happy Families podcast Real Parenting Solutions every
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  Speaker 1: day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are justin
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  Speaker 1: and Kylie Coulson.
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  Speaker 2: When did ill being become a word?
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  Speaker 1: Don't know, don't know, haven't looked it up, don't know
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  Speaker 1: how long that's been in the vernacular, but certainly been
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  Speaker 1: around for since everyone's made a big deal about well being.
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  Speaker 1: There has to be an equal and opposite reaction, doesn't
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  Speaker 1: there There has to be the negative, Kylie. Today's doctor's desk.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, my head's hurting already.
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  Speaker 1: We haven't even started.
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  Speaker 2: You read me the preamble. You're supposed to make this
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  Speaker 2: nice and easy. Let's go.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. So there's a brand new study from a colleague
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  Speaker 1: of mine by the name of Emma Bradshaw. She's the
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  Speaker 1: University of Sydney. Would you say that you're controlling or supportive?
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes the stakes are really high, right, Like the children
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  Speaker 1: have a decision that needs to be made. Maybe you're
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  Speaker 1: thinking about schooling or sport or some extracurricular activities. They're
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  Speaker 1: talking about careers. Maybe maybe they just don't want to
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  Speaker 1: go to bed, or they need to eat some food.
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  Speaker 1: And we know best, right, we know best. So Emma
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  Speaker 1: and some colleagues of hers have done this massive meta
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  Speaker 1: analysis and that's what we're going to talk about today.
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  Speaker 2: It had more so a matter analysis is.
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  Speaker 1: It's a study of a bunch of studies. So I'll
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  Speaker 1: tell you all about the studies in just a sec.
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  Speaker 1: But there are three terms that we're going to talk
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  Speaker 1: about today, and I don't want them to be confusing.
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  Speaker 1: I want them to be really, really simple, So let
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  Speaker 1: me define them. Number one, autonomy support. This is what
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  Speaker 1: my book The Parenting Revolution was about. Autonomy support is
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  Speaker 1: about taking the perspective of your child, engaging in developing
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  Speaker 1: ideas and rules and boundaries and structures and frameworks together.
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  Speaker 1: It's about giving your children a rational when you're bringing
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  Speaker 1: in rules and limits, so you're explaining the why, and
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  Speaker 1: it's about supporting their self expression in appropriate ways. So
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  Speaker 1: that's autonomy support makes sense. Psychological control is when we
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  Speaker 1: influence our children's thinking, or their emotions or their behavior
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  Speaker 1: through coercion. So we apply external pressure, lots and lots
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  Speaker 1: of punishments and rewards and guilt and shame and if
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  Speaker 1: you do that, I'm going to be very disappointed in you.
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  Speaker 1: That kind of stuff. Okay, that's psychological control. And the
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  Speaker 1: last definition is behavioral control. Okay. So psychological control is
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  Speaker 1: all about the guilt and the shame and the well,
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  Speaker 1: I'll love you if you do that. I'll give you
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  Speaker 1: a hug if you do that. So it's withholding or
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  Speaker 1: providing privileges and that kind of thing and approval. Behavioral
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  Speaker 1: control is essentially saying there's an expectation that I have here,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to communicate it clearly. And behavioral control is
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  Speaker 1: actually really important. It's associated with positive outcomes in children's
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  Speaker 1: lives because they need us to be the prefront cortex. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so there are three definitions. I know it's me doing
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  Speaker 1: a lot of talking and it's a lot of academic stuff,
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  Speaker 1: but it's so important, Kylie.
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  Speaker 2: You just get so excited about this stuff.
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  Speaker 1: So excited that I'm actually going to be doing some
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  Speaker 1: academic work around this with these people. Fairly soon. I'm
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  Speaker 1: very very excited for it. So here's the meta analysis.
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  Speaker 1: This is a study of a whole bunch of studies. Overall.
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  Speaker 1: This study looks at two hundred and thirty eight studies.
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  Speaker 2: Why would you do a study of studies? So what happens?
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  Speaker 1: You know how people say, oh, you can find evidence
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  Speaker 1: to support any position.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: What that means really is that a whole bunch of
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  Speaker 1: people do a whole bunch of studies and they come
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  Speaker 1: up with results that are kind of a bit here
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  Speaker 1: and a bit there. There's some studies that say X,
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  Speaker 1: and there's some studies that say why. And people say, well,
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  Speaker 1: that's cause science is just this. You can find any
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  Speaker 1: study to say anything support any position. People will do
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  Speaker 1: a meta analysis because they want to find what the
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  Speaker 1: overall picture of those studies is. Because if you do
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  Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty eight studies and two hundred and
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  Speaker 1: thirty six of them or two hundred and twelve of
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  Speaker 1: them all point really really strongly in one direction and
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  Speaker 1: the other five or ten or twenty point in the
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  Speaker 1: other direction, it's nice to understand what's going on there
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  Speaker 1: and why. So a meta analysis says, what's really going
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  Speaker 1: on here with autonomy support and psychological control. And this
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  Speaker 1: was a big study, a meta analysis looking at whether
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  Speaker 1: or not autonomy support is or is not positively associated
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  Speaker 1: with child wellbeing. The hypothesis, of course, is if you're
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  Speaker 1: autonomy supportive, your kid's going to thrive. And it was
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  Speaker 1: also looking at whether or not it's psychological control, that is,
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  Speaker 1: the coercion and the manipulation of the shame of the
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  Speaker 1: kild is associated at all with well being in children,
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  Speaker 1: or if it's only associated with ill being in children.
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  Speaker 1: That's why this matters, because there are some studies that
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  Speaker 1: say it's not that big of a deal, or the
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  Speaker 1: size of the effect isn't that great.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'm really curious what she found if she studied
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  Speaker 2: two hundred and thirty eight of them.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to give you some more information about this.
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  Speaker 1: I know I'm geeking out, but I promise only twenty
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  Speaker 1: more seconds and then we'll get to the guts of it.
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  Speaker 1: The two hundred and thirty eight studies that they reviewed
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  Speaker 1: in this meta analysis have been conducted across the last
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  Speaker 1: fifty one years, so since the early nineteen seventies, So
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  Speaker 1: we're talking about a lot of research with more than
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty six thousand participants thirty eight countries,
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  Speaker 1: So we're talking about super cross cultural. We're talking about
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  Speaker 1: individualistic countries and collectivist countries. Because here's the thing. If
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  Speaker 1: you are autonomy supportive but somebody comes from a collectivist culture,
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  Speaker 1: is it going to wash out? Does it actually matter
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  Speaker 1: or not? So this is what we're looking at. And
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  Speaker 1: it was also looking at all the different age ranges
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  Speaker 1: of children from toddlers through the primary school kids right
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  Speaker 1: through to adolescents in high school. That was what the
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  Speaker 1: research was about. Would you like to know what they found?
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  Speaker 2: I would love it. Sitting on the edge of my seat,
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  Speaker 2: was literally going to.
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  Speaker 1: Say, you're on the edge of your seat, honey. I
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  Speaker 1: know this is a little bit geeky, but here's the thing.
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  Speaker 1: If you want to be a great parent, and there
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  Speaker 1: was one variable that mattered more than anything else, this
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  Speaker 1: is it. This is the one. It's about autonomy support
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  Speaker 1: So here's what they found. Autonomy supportive parenting is positively
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  Speaker 1: associated with child wellbeing, and psychological control is positively associated
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  Speaker 1: with ill being. In other words, the more control there is,
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  Speaker 1: the worse off your child is. The more support there is,
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  Speaker 1: the better off your child is and that applies across regions,
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  Speaker 1: across countries, regardless of the cultural situation, regardless of the
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  Speaker 1: age of the child, and regardless of gender. This is
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  Speaker 1: a strong and robust finding that supports everything that I
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  Speaker 1: write about in the Pairing Revolution. After the break, we're
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  Speaker 1: going to talk about what it means to be autonomy supportive,
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  Speaker 1: because that's how you raise happy, healthy, resilient kids. Okay, Kylie,
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  Speaker 1: I've geeked out. I've gone through the research. There's a
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  Speaker 1: couple of other things that I really desperately want to
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  Speaker 1: tell you about. Ask me about them, but let's talk
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  Speaker 1: about autonomy support more generally.
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  Speaker 2: So, yes, you have spent a long time geeking out
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  Speaker 2: about this, but what does it actually mean for.
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  Speaker 1: Better I'm so sorry, but it's really really important. What
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  Speaker 1: it actually means is this, if we become psychologically controlling,
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  Speaker 1: we will see our children struggle. Their motivation will be reduced,
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  Speaker 1: they will feel more poorly about themselves, their self worth
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  Speaker 1: will go down, they will feel like they are not
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  Speaker 1: sufficient in our eyes. That's what it actually means that
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  Speaker 1: there was a study that was conducted and referenced in
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  Speaker 1: this meta analysis from oh No, maybe ten or fifteen
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  Speaker 1: years ago now that looked at parental psychological control, and
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  Speaker 1: what the research has found was that when parents were
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  Speaker 1: psychologically controlling, that is, when they were coercive, when they
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  Speaker 1: used threats and external pressures, and when they said to
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  Speaker 1: the kids, I love you if you do that, I
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  Speaker 1: won't love you if you do this, when they said
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  Speaker 1: to the kids, I'm really disappointed in you. Those kinds
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  Speaker 1: of things, those psychologically shaming, guilt inducing kinds of things.
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  Speaker 1: They found that twelve months, so it's a longer journal study.
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  Speaker 1: Twelve months after that assessment was done, those kids were
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  Speaker 1: significantly more likely to experience maladaptive perfectionism in their lives. Now,
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  Speaker 1: perfectionism is associated with depression, it's associated with anxiety. It's
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  Speaker 1: actually one of the most debilitating things that we can
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  Speaker 1: see in kids. You don't want to see perfectionism in
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  Speaker 1: your child, especially what's known as socially prescribed perfectionism. That is,
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  Speaker 1: my parents expect it of me that I will achieve
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  Speaker 1: that standard, that the feeling I can never be enough.
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  Speaker 1: It's devastating for a child. But here's the worst thing.
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  Speaker 1: A year later, they were much more likely to be perfectionistic.
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  Speaker 1: A year after that, they were significantly more likely to
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  Speaker 1: have depression. In other words, psychological control ruins kids. There's
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  Speaker 1: no other way to say it. It really it's such
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  Speaker 1: a danger to them. But parents who learned to bring
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  Speaker 1: psychological control right down. There was one study where over
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  Speaker 1: a six year period, as parents brought the control down,
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  Speaker 1: the kids grew up through their adolescent years into young adulthood.
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  Speaker 1: The more they brought that psychological control down, the more
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  Speaker 1: the kid's grades improved at school, and the better psychologically
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  Speaker 1: adjusted they were as they went out of the workforce
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  Speaker 1: and started their lives. You can spin it around autonomy support.
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  Speaker 1: The more autonomy supportive you are, the better your child regulates.
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  Speaker 1: There's so much dysregulation when they're feeling controlled, but when
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  Speaker 1: we work through stuff with them, they do so much better.
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  Speaker 1: And like I said, this is a cross cultural Australias, Japan, Career, India, China,
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  Speaker 1: psychological control costs and autonomy support enhancers.
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  Speaker 2: So if you were going to give parents three tips
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  Speaker 2: to help them in their endeavors to be more autonomy
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  Speaker 2: supportive of their children, to let go of those psychological
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  Speaker 2: controls that all of us sometimes get stuck in from
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  Speaker 2: time to time, what would you say, would be your
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  Speaker 2: top three.
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  Speaker 1: I kind of want to say, let the kids live
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  Speaker 1: their own lives, but it really depends on the age
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  Speaker 1: and stage of your child, right, I mean, you can't
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  Speaker 1: say that to a two year old. Well, it's your life.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, if you're a plane the traffic, you just
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  Speaker 1: go for it. You can't. And autonomy support does not
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  Speaker 1: mean that people get to do whatever they want, but
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  Speaker 1: children get to go out and just live their life.
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  Speaker 1: Help that that's not what that's about. My three things
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  Speaker 1: would actually be this Number one. Explore, Explore their.
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  Speaker 2: Will and empower.
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  Speaker 1: You just took my best to gosh. Of all my lines,
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  Speaker 1: number one is explore because when you think about what
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  Speaker 1: autonomy support is, it's about taking their perspective. Your child
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  Speaker 1: is having an emotional reaction to something, and it's very
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  Speaker 1: easy to say, I just stop it, behave do as
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  Speaker 1: I say, And in many cases that probably is where
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  Speaker 1: you'll go to eventually end up. But you can get
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  Speaker 1: there straight away your way, or you can get there
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  Speaker 1: a little bit more compassionately where they feel understood and
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  Speaker 1: then they get on with it, and research shows they
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  Speaker 1: do so. Explore, I understand where they're coming from. Take
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  Speaker 1: their perspective. Explain. Explain means that you provide a rationale
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  Speaker 1: for the rules and limits that you want to see implemented.
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  Speaker 1: And empower that's the third one. Empower does not mean
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  Speaker 1: you say, well, I've listened to you, and now you've
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  Speaker 1: listened to me, so off you go figure it out.
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  Speaker 1: That's not what it means. It means that you engage
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  Speaker 1: in developing ideas and rules and boundaries and frameworks and systems. Together,
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  Speaker 1: you develop the structure that was bought their wise and
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  Speaker 1: healthy and safe decision making together.
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  Speaker 2: When our kids are young, what is the one question
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  Speaker 2: that they will ask us time and time again that
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  Speaker 2: drives us all Why? Why? They want to understand their
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  Speaker 2: world and they want to understand the restrictions all the
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  Speaker 2: controls that have been placed on them.
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  Speaker 1: Quick question for you, why what's the second last letter
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  Speaker 1: of the alphabet?
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  Speaker 2: Why?
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  Speaker 1: I just want to know.
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  Speaker 2: I just think it's so it's so intriguing to me
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  Speaker 2: that we are literally wired that way from the time
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  Speaker 2: they're speaking. It's one of the first questions they learned
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  Speaker 2: to ask, and they don't even learn it. It's literally there.
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  Speaker 2: They are so inquisitive and curious about the world around them,
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  Speaker 2: and they want to understand why. And the more we
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  Speaker 2: work together with them to explain and empower them, the
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  Speaker 2: more capable they feel and competent they feel to deal
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  Speaker 2: with the world.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, and you've tapped into these basic psychological
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  Speaker 1: needs when you spend time engaging in their perspective, providing rationales, rules, limits,
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  Speaker 1: rationals for the rules and limits, and really engaging with
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  Speaker 1: them in developing a way forward. What you're doing is
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  Speaker 1: you're giving them credit for having a brain. You're giving
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  Speaker 1: them a sense of volition, choice voice in their lives.
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  Speaker 1: They feel like they are actually in the driver's seat
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  Speaker 1: of their life to some degree, certainly at a developmentally
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  Speaker 1: appropriate level. And they feel competent, they feel capable, they
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  Speaker 1: feel like you believe in their ability to do it.
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  Speaker 1: So we will link to the paper in the show notes.
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  Speaker 1: I think that it's one of the most important papers
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  Speaker 1: that have been published. I know it's a bit geeky.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know how many of you hung around at
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  Speaker 1: the very end, but it's a really important paper and
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  Speaker 1: I just had to share it on the pod today.
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  Speaker 1: Are you glad you listened to that one? You're glad
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  Speaker 1: you sat here with me? For the last sort of
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  Speaker 1: fifteen minutes and talk to it over with me. Sure,
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  Speaker 1: so convincing. This is why I do how to do
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: so I can interpret that sort of science and help
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  Speaker 1: And this happened.
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  Speaker 2: I'm in the kitchen.
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  Speaker 1: Oh boy, we can get in trouble of saying that
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  Speaker 1: it's twenty twenty five, but let's just go with anywhere.
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  Speaker 1: I really appreciate that I get to sit here and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: you get to go and do that. It just works
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  Speaker 1: so well for the two of us in our context. Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: If this has been helpful, we'll link to the paper
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  Speaker 1: in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening to
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  Speaker 1: the Happy Families Podcast today our Doctor's Desk edition. The
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  Speaker 1: Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: and if you'd like more info and more resources to
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: make your family happier, please visit us at Happy Families
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: dot com dot a